-- supporting medical providers in wrongful injury cases;
-- letting mining companies strip mine everything; practically steal government lands to do it; and cheat taxpayers out of public revenues;
-- voted for the Bush administration's 2005 Energy Policy Act in spite of criticizing it in campaign rhetoric; it was drafted in secret; provides huge industry subsidies; $6 billion to Big Oil and Gas; and a cornucopia of other industry handouts;
-- backs nuclear power; loose industry regulation; $12 billion in subsidies; and numerous other benefits to promote a dangerous technology;
-- harmful biofuels production and other agribusiness interests, including multi-billion dollar subsidies;
-- opposes universal single-payer national health care, the hundreds of billions it would save, and the huge need for it among tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured;
-- claims opposition to NAFTA, but campaigned in 2004 for more deals like it;
-- voted against a 2005 Commerce Appropriations Bill amendment; it would have disfavored offshoring jobs by stopping companies doing business abroad from denying workers organizing rights, minimum wages, and other protections;
-- assured AIPAC he's uncompromisingly pro-Israel; supports continued annual funding; and backed off from earlier promises about a just end to the conflict;
-- supports the death penalty and brutish prison-industrial complex; it affects his people mostly in the world's largest gulag;
-- voted for repressive immigration legislation; it enhances border security; (selectively) penalizes employers; deploys National Guard troops to the border; and imprisons and deports undocumented workers without due process;
-- voted to confirm Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, and Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security - a deplorable roguish threesome;
-- voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006 but supports kangaroo court military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees;
-- appointed billionaire Penny Pritzker as his campaign finance chairperson; she and her family were involved in predatory lending schemes, including subprime ones; she also served on the Board of the failed Pritzker family-owned Superior Bank in Hinsdale, IL; because of poor lending practices, sloppy bookkeeping and likely fraud, it cost the FDIC $700 million and depositors $65 million;
-- equivocates but his rhetoric and body language are clear; he supports the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (S. 1959); it's called the "thought crimes" act; it passed the House overwhelmingly last October and awaits final resolution in the Senate;
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
No question, Nader would be a more principled President than Obama. But a futile vote for Nader risks a national disaster - election of McCain, more neocons on the Supreme Court, more wars, etc.
To run a third-party candidate for President before the third party can elect a significant number of members of Congress - and thereby gain general recognition as being CREDIBLE - is either infantile or subversive.
by
Jim Arnold (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 81 comments)
on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 10:07:23 PM
As wonderful as someone might think Nader is, a vote for him will not elect him to anything. A vote for Nader is a vote for continuation of war and quite possibly much worse.
by
PrMaine (11 articles, 9 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 391 comments)
on Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 8:34:34 AM
Right. like we worked to see Democrats elected in 2006 who said they would end the war, impeach, etc etc.
Like that happened. The Dems take some power in Congress and then stall, delay, subvert, ignore... Don't blame Nader for the war. Put the blame squarely where it belongs-on the Republicans and Democrats who form our national government.
Easy to pick in a straw man to blame for your troubles, when you yourself are responsible.
by
Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 396 comments)
on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 12:19:39 PM
you folks should stop all the ridiculous rubbish you pull keeping us off ballot lines and dragging us into court for the most frivolous issues.
We could have people in Congress, but that is not the Democrats game. They will brook no competition and will stop at nothing to keep competition from occurring, just as the Republicans.
We have every right to run candidates. You all have not, as yet, written laws precluding us from doing that.
If you want us to support you, well, not likely to happen, but it might make you think of running better candidates yourselves.
Democracy does not equal Democrat monopoly.
by
Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 396 comments)
on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 12:15:13 PM
Nader and his followers only seem to think in terms of parties. The Democratic leaders are cowards and sell-outs, so let's help trash our country to give them what they deserve? I'm a Democrat because this is a two party system. As long as it remains a de facto two party system, I'm a Democrat. Granted, the Party deserves ridicule, contempt, criticism. But what about all of us little people? Our lives, our children's futures, are being destroyed by the margin of difference between corporate liberalism and corporate conservatism. Granted, we only managed to push the party a bit to the left in 2006, but what's more realistic? Pushing further in 2008 or electing Nader for President?
I could write in Thomas Jefferson for President in November, and maybe get a charge of self-satisfaction for doing so. But Thomas Jefferson is dead, and if McCain wins by one vote, I'm screwed, my kids are screwed, far worse than if Obama wins. Let's build on what we have, not hope that things will only get better when we've hit rock-bottom. Get realistic, get grown.
by
Jim Arnold (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 81 comments)
on Monday, June 9, 2008 at 2:06:38 AM
5 comments
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